Once more, with feeling
Monday, October 13th, 2008Hrmm.. it’s been too long since I’ve written here. In the interim, I have been doing quite a bit of reading about writing (a weak excuse, I know).
Dwight Swain’s ‘Techniques of the Selling Writer’ in particular is a classic, amazingly written in 1965 but as fresh and inspiring as ever. I can also recommend James Scott Bell’s ‘Plot and Structure’, a far more recent but just as useful exposition on the nuts and bolts of building stories. Anyway. Enough about that.
You see, in some respects, I’ve gone and made this all rather difficult for myself. Which is rather typical of me, by the way. Most writers sensibly start with aiming at something small, like a short story or even a poem. Me, I had to pick a bloody novel. Which makes that whole virtuous feedback loop that comes from starting and then finishing something all rather distant. Hell, it’s makes it largely non-existent!